


A New Debt

by NonSequitur



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Action/Adventure, Dragonborn DLC, Drama, Gen, Kidnapping, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 22:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4366199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NonSequitur/pseuds/NonSequitur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dovahkiin has run afoul of a loan shark Orc on the island of Solstheim. Mogrul is determined to be paid, and Magnus is determined to ignore him-- but Mogrul prides himself on always getting his due. Oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Debt

**Author's Note:**

> This is, of course, a take off on the Dragonborn quest A New Debt (familiarity with the Dragonborn DLC will be important to understanding some of what goes on here). I've found the way the situation is handled overall to be a bit frustrating, considering how Mogrul goes on and on about how he always gets the money that's owed to him and overplays the tough guy act without really backing it up (sending three low-level bandits after you every once in a while is not what I call "backing it up").  
> So here's a much more dramatic version. *sparkle sparkle*  
> (Not really a continuation of, but related to, A Letter From the Dragonborn)

Ash. Everywhere. No place was safe from it. Not his boots, not his belt, not his _hair—_

Magnus pushed his hair out of his face for the fortieth time. It had once been blond. It had once been clean. Now it was ash. The same as everything else in this _gods-forsaken—_

His boot slipped on a patch of loose ash and he went down. The devious beige powder found its way under the collar of his tunic and into the sleeves of his cloak as he slid, losing a few feet of progress on the hill he’d been doggedly attempting to scale for the last fifteen minutes.

He gave a muffled groan as he came to a rest. Snow he was used to, he was a Nord, he seemed to have been born with an innate sense of how to traverse snowy conditions. Ash was too much like sand, too dry and dangerous when loose, and apparently too big an obstacle for even the gods-damned Dovahkiin, Archmage and honorary member of House Telvanni (though he doubted what worth that title truly carried) to handle.

Magnus suppressed the urge to press his hands into the ground and send a tremor through the earth. He was trying to save the world, not shake it to pieces.

Footsteps shuffled somewhere nearby. Magnus got to his feet and brushed himself off, straightening his tunic and cloak. His boots would need to be shaken out as well, but that could be done later. He had to remain alert. The ash was annoying, but focusing too much on remaining upright caused one to forget that the rest of the island could be far more dangerous.

Three figures appeared at the top of the hill. His immediate thought was reavers, one of them wearing full bonemold plate armor, the other two mismatched sets of fur and leather. It was obvious they had seen him, though, and they didn’t seem to be going on the offensive—but they _were_ headed directly for him. He tensed, magic simmering just beneath the skin of his fingertips.

“Hey!” one of them shouted, as if there were dozens of people milling about the deserted landscape that he might be calling to. Magnus said nothing as they approached, noting that the one in bonemold kept touching the hilt of his blade. His fingers curled, the magic growing hot in the palm of his hand.

They stopped about ten paces away. “You Magnus?” said the one who’d shouted to him. He was a Dunmer, skinny with a half-mad glint in his eye.

“Who’s asking?” the mage replied.

The Dunmer tossed a folded slip of parchment to the ground in front of him. “Mogrul says pay up. We figure we can just take it off your corpse.”

The words weren’t even fully out of the Dunmer’s mouth before his cronies had their weapons drawn and pointing at Magnus. Magnus jumped back a few feet, loathe though he was to give up more hard-won elevation on the hill, and aimed a strike of lightning at the one furthest from him: a woman, also a mage judging by the shards of ice she was throwing at his face.

An ironflesh spell sprang to his fingertips just as the speaker loosed a pair of arrows from a bow nearly as tall as he was. They bounced off Magnus’ chest and abdomen, knocking him back another step but doing no further damage. He had time to conjure a blade in his right hand before the warrior in bonemold attempted to remove his head.

Magnus was a quick caster, but the warrior had the advantage of weight and a bigger weapon on him. Magnus blocked the decapitating swipe but couldn’t fully deflect the blade, instead having to push it up and duck under it. Another arrow hit him in the side, and he straightened just in time to ward off an ice spike fired from the hands of a singed mage.

He was outnumbered, outarmored, and they all had the upper ground. The warrior came in for a second strike as he heard the creak of the bow being pulled back again. The ironflesh wouldn’t last forever.

_FUS RO DAH_

The three attackers went flying backwards, colliding with each other as the alien words tore from Magnus’s throat. He coughed, trying to clear the still-unfamiliar taste of strange magic from his mouth, and found a fireball growing wild and angry between his hands.

The hired thugs were still trying to get to their feet. Magnus took aim and let the fireball fly right into the center of them.

A sizzling boom, and then the smell of burning hair.

The one in bonemold was still moving, though his lower half was a twisted, blackened mess. Magnus drew Keening and put the man out of his misery.

He coughed again, having inhaled some ash (gods, that stuff really did get everywhere) and caught his breath. His eyes fell on the parchment the Dunmer had thrown. It had been torn nearly in half in the fight, but it was still readable.

_Find Magnus and get my money. I don't care how you do it, or what you do with him. Just get my gold!_

_\--M._

Mogrul, the Dunmer had said. So he had made good on his word. Magnus had angered the Orc by finding a job for a man named Drovas and sending him to work for an eccentric yet powerful wizard, and Mogrul didn’t dare pursue him. Mogrul didn’t dare personally pursue Magnus either, it seemed, and wouldn’t even sic his lanky bodyguard on him.

“You win this time, devil-spawn hill,” Magnus growled as he abandoned his current pursuit—cleansing the Stones for the Storn, the Skaal shaman— and turned back toward Raven Rock to deal with this new irritation.

~

Raven Rock was quiet in the evenings. The merchants had all packed up their stalls, Glover’s grindstone had stopped spinning, and the only noise came from the Redoran guards patrolling the district.

The Retching Netch, on the other hand, was another matter.

The clamor of laughter and too many voices met Magnus’s ears as he entered the cornerclub. Despite the ebony mines running dry and the low likelihood of the Raven Rock settlement lasting much longer, the people here could still have a good time if they got drunk enough, which everybody seemed to be tonight.

Well, not everybody. Magnus felt Mogrul’s eyes upon him before he even took a step into the building. He was sitting at a table near the fire on the first floor, as he usually did, with his gaunt bodyguard—Cutter or Slitter or Gutter or something ridiculous—shadowing him. Magnus reluctantly turned away from the staircase that descended into the main part of the cornerclub, where everyone was drinking and having a good time, and walked over to the Orc.

“So.” He placed the incriminating parchment on Mogrul’s table.

Mogrul’s eyes flicked to the parchment as he took a nonchalant drag from his tankard. “I warned you, milk-drinker,” he said. “Pay up or talk to my boys.”

“They weren’t the greatest conversationalists, I’m afraid. I have to say, I’m disappointed. I thought an experienced loan shark like you would hire only the best knee-breakers in town.” Magnus shrugged, trying not to cringe as the bruises on his chest and side protested the movement. “Make it a challenge next time, would you?”

Mogrul didn’t answer, continuing to give Magnus a smug look.

“How much did you pay them to come after me, Orc?” the mage said. The bodyguard’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. “Twenty septims apiece? Fifty? Let me tell you something, free of charge: if you keep sending men after me, you’re going to end up spending far more money on hiring them than you claim I owe you in the first place.”

“I’ll add it to your tab when it reaches that amount, then,” Mogrul replied. “You seem to think yourself pretty threatening. Keep your advice, and let me return the favor: I don’t care who you think you are, because here, you’re just an outlander, another wanderer coming through. No one gets away without paying me. They all pay, either in gold or in blood.” He waved his hand when Magnus opened his mouth. “Go tell the Second Councilor if you want. Go tell Morvayn himself if it makes you feel better. They won’t care; they have enough problems on their plate. And if you wind up dead in the wastes, will anyone here notice? Do yourself a favor, puny Nord, and swallow your pride. You’ll live longer.”

With that, the Orc returned to his drink, apparently not going to pay any more attention to the man standing in front of him.

Magnus turned without another word and joined the group downstairs. Even if Mogrul wouldn’t see reason, Magnus couldn’t just deal with the threat right there, with everyone around to watch. He’d just have to go about the job Storn had given him and hope Mogrul would eventually give up in favor of saving his money.

~

The lurker screeched, spraying another mess of slime and tentacles at his feet. Magnus scrambled backward to avoid the poisonous spread, his hands moving in the formation of another spell. He unleashed a storm of ice at the otherworldly abomination, managing to freeze its legs and buy himself some time while it struggled.

“WAIEEEEEE,” wailed one of the Rieklings that had been possessed by Miraak’s call to corrupt the stones. It dashed past the man and tried to hide behind a boulder. Magnus had been surprised by the workers at this stone; so far he had only seen men and women entranced and pressed into Miraak’s service, but this Stone had attracted a pair of Rieklings with one of Miraak’s cultists acting as their handler (there was a job Magnus was glad he didn’t have). The cultist was dead, having been torn apart by the lurker. Which was a fate Magnus himself faced if he didn’t get moving.

  
Another blast of frost tingled on his fingertips, and he threw it at the lurker’s fishy chest. The lurker howled, bringing its arms up above its head and pitching violently forward to slam them into the ground. A wave of force uprooted the packed rock and dirt, and Magnus didn’t get out of the way in time. He found himself thrown off his feet and colliding with unforgiving stone.

The world went hazy for a moment, and he fought to regain the breath that had been knocked out of him. Ringing sounded in his ears, drowning out the noise of the lurker’s follow-up screech.

Three figures came into focus above him: two more Dunmer and an ugly, flat-nosed Imperial, who began to speak. “Mogrul says—”

“By the Nine, I’m _busy!_ ” Magnus shouted, lurching to his feet. It had been five days since the confrontation in The Retching Netch. Five days and three more groups of Mogrul’s collectors pursuing him across the ashland wilds—four, including this one.

The men caught sight of the eight-foot fish-like creature that was lumbering towards them. “What in Boethiah’s name—” one of the Dunmer managed to get out before the lurker had him around the waist. The man screamed and thrashed as the lurker fit his torso into its mouth, until a horrible tearing crunch and a rain of blood silenced him. Magnus tasted bile in the back of his throat.

The other two thugs raised their weapons, but neither of them wanted to go near the lurker. Magnus called fire into his hands. Surely, the thing must be almost dead? He couldn’t tell what harm had already come to it, as its skin was a slippery greenish-gray that defied easy recognition of any wounds or the blackening of frostbite.

He released the flames, which spread hungrily across the lurker’s body. The lurker screamed and thrashed in much the same way as its last victim had. Another quick spell had lightning arcing out into the creature’s face, frying the skin and finally, finally bringing it down.

Panting and aching, Magnus turned to face the remaining collectors, who glanced at each other and glanced back at the mage. They apparently decided he was a much less paralyzing threat than the lurker had been, as they raised their weapons and charged, each yelling obscenities.

Magnus ducked under one blow, and his arm was grazed by the other. Lightning crackled from his hands with enthusiasm, shooting out to strike the Imperial and then arcing toward the Dunmer. The men reeled, and the mage used the opportunity to set them both aflame as well. The Imperial ran screaming but didn’t get far as the flames consumed him, while the Dunmer seemed to shrug the fire off and resumed a balanced stance, banging his mace against his shield. He swung at Magnus’s ribcage, but the mage grabbed hold of his wrist with a still-flaming hand and pushed it out wide, then placed his other hand around the Dunmer’s neck. The Dunmer’s eyes widened for a moment, then fell slack as a spike of ice shot through his skull. Magnus dropped him.

His ears were still ringing, and he felt lightheaded. There was blood in his mouth and running down his face. A glance around told him the Rieklings were either still hiding, or they’d run off, as the area was deserted of anything living. He took a step forward and staggered, reaching out to the nearest boulder for support.

_Thwunk._ Something hit him solidly in the sternum, forcing him back against the rock, and then a fierce and unapologetic pain bloomed across his chest. He looked down.

An arrow sprouted from his chest.

He couldn’t draw breath. He stared at the fletching, vague thoughts of _ironflesh failed_ circling his mind as the world started to fade. He looked up as he fell to his knees, and the last sight he saw was of a hooded fourth figure moving in and out of focus, descending the cliffs towards him, a bow on its back.

~

He came to slowly, but didn’t open his eyes, instead trying to take stock of himself. Why was he still alive? He hurt in too many places to count. The air was cold, though he could hear the crackling of a fire nearby, as well as the lapping of waves. His arms were stiff, and when he tried to move them, he realized they’d fallen asleep. They were outstretched away from his body, and something was holding him up—though he couldn’t tell what, due to the numbness. He was on his knees. He opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was that the wound from the arrow had been almost fully healed, though there remained a thick scab with a blackish ring around it, and traces of blackish blood across his bare chest. It was night. His cloak and tunic were gone, as well as all his enchanted items; he wore only his trousers. A glance to the left showed him a thick, well-knotted rope encircled his left wrist and stretched out to secure him to a scorched tree; the situation must be the same for his right arm. He turned his head to face forward again, wincing at the pain in his neck muscles.

Someone was sitting on a stool in front of him, though all he could see was a silhouette, the light from a tall fire illuminating the tiny island they were on but keeping the face of his captor obscure.

“I’ve been doing some thinking, Magnus,” the person said in a guttural voice as he stood up from the stool to tower over the mage. Magnus’s breath caught in his throat, his blood turning to ice. Mogrul. “When you told me I’d end up spending more money on sending thugs after you than you actually owed me, I thought you were just scared. Then no one seemed to have any success in getting my money from you, and I reconsidered. You appeared to be right. I’d be wasting time and money with that course of action.” While Mogrul talked, Magnus pulled frantically at the ropes securing his arms, but they were tight. He tried to call up a flame to burn away the fibers, but to his horror, nothing happened. “So I tallied up the amount I’d already spent on collectors and subtracted that figure from the figure you owe me. The remaining amount I spent on the man standing behind you.”

Magnus whipped his head around, straining to see behind him. At the edge of his peripheral vision was a tall, shadowy shape, but he couldn’t make out anything clearer. “Mogrul,” he said, his voice rasping out of his dry throat. “This is insane. It’s only a thousand septims, and I’m not even the one that owes it to you.”

“Only a thousand septims? Then why didn’t you pay it? The insane thing here is your pride. I just have a reputation to maintain.” He waved his hand. “Anyway. The way I figure it, you now owe me two thousand septims: the original one and the one I’ve spent chasing you down. So here’s what we’re going to do.” The man behind Magnus stepped around the left hand tree and came into view. Magnus’s eyes widened. Even in the firelight, it was plain that the man’s skin was deathly pale, and his eyes burned like two pinpricks of embers. Vampire. Breton, by the look of him. He wasn’t actually that tall, but he loomed over the kneeling Nord anyway. “This is Agryctor,” Mogrul continued. “I’ve hired only the best for you, Magnus. He’s going to get two thousand septims worth of entertainment out of you for me.”

The mocking echo of Magnus’s earlier words rang in his ears. Desperate, he tried again to summon some fragment of magic to burn away the ropes, but again, there was nothing.

“The arrow I shot you with was coated in a strong magicka poison, one of my own making,” Agryctor said, his voice a gravelly hiss. “I used to be a doctor, you know. There will be no spells to call to your defense, and I’ve had hundreds of years to perfect my art.” He dropped a leather case, which unrolled on the ground at his feet. It was filled with all manner of wicked tools, the firelight glinting off their steel edges and tips.

“You can’t do this,” Magnus gasped as Agryctor sat on Mogrul’s vacated stool and began sorting through his tools. “Someone will hear-”

“Hear? Look around, Magnus. You see that dark line, across the waves to the west there? That’s Solstheim. The only people to hear you will be Agryctor and me. Do try to attract some attention, though. The louder your screams, the sooner I might let the vampire kill you.”

Magnus’s breath grew short as Agryctor chose a slender knife from his case and dipped it into a black vial of something. He instinctively leaned away from the blade as Agryctor approached. “Put your head down,” Agryctor ordered. When Magnus didn’t move, the vampire kicked him just under the ribs. Magnus doubled over, winded and coughing, his shoulders screaming in protest as all his weight was suddenly on his arms. Agryctor grabbed the back of his head and forced it down, drawing the knife lightly along his upper spine. A writhing fire spread across his back as his muscles seized up, tightening themselves into knots. He gritted his teeth, clamping his jaw shut against the pain, unwilling to give Mogrul the satisfaction so soon.

After a few moments, the pain lessened enough to be manageable. He gasped and looked up to meet Agryctor’s eyes. “Wh-what was that?”

There was something terrifying in the vampire’s gaze. “Seasoning,” he said.

“Wh-”

Agryctor lunged forward, pushing Magnus’s head to the side to bare his neck, and bit deeply. This time, Magnus couldn’t help himself. A scream ripped from his lungs, echoing in the empty night air around them, and Mogrul grinned. The sensation of his blood being pulled from him alone was horror enough, to say nothing of the feeling of teeth in his neck.

It only lasted a couple seconds. As soon as Agryctor released him, the vampire put a hand encased in golden light against the bleeding wound. His skin sealed up, the veins reconnecting and preventing him from bleeding out.

“Well,” Mogrul said. “That was worth fifty septims right there. Let’s continue.”

~

Dawn began to touch the eastern horizon. Magnus watched the sun rise through half-open eyes, utterly exhausted. He had been whipped, beaten, burned, and half-drowned throughout the night, and had lost consciousness three times only to be roused again and subjected to further torment. Now the fire was burning low, and Mogrul seemed to be losing interest.

That was both good and bad. He could see no escape, not that he’d been given any time to think about it during the ordeal. Was this his fate? To die out on a rock barely thirty feet long, the victim of a vampire and a greedy Orc?

Mogrul nodded to Agryctor, who reached for the end of a branch that was sticking out of the fire and pulled it out. Its other end burned a deep orange, the same color as Agryctor’s glowing eyes, the same color as the eyes of a dragon.

He had killed dragons, and once thought that he might find his end at the hands (or breath) of one of them. Perhaps fire was to be his final destiny, though the thought of death from a manmade blaze was a bit anticlimactic for the dragonborn, eater of dragon souls and master of the dragon tongue—

The Thu’um.

Agryctor pushed Magnus’s head back and positioned the smoldering embers in front of his left eye.

“Any final words?” Mogrul asked.

Magnus opened his mouth and said the first thing that came to mind.

_OD AH VIING_

What remained of his voice cracked on the words, but nonetheless, a tremor shook the ground beneath their feet. Agryctor and Mogrul stumbled back a few steps.

“What in Oblivion was _that?!_ ” Mogrul yelled as he regained his balance. Magnus didn’t answer, but turned his gaze to the sky, a desperate prayer running through his head that Odahviing would hear him, would be close enough to come in time. If he didn’t, if he was too far away to hear Magnus’s plea, the mage didn’t have enough strength left in him for another Shout.

Moments passed.

“Better take his tongue so that he can’t try that again, whatever it was,” Mogrul said to Agryctor.

Agryctor nodded and gripped Magnus’s jaw in his left hand, trying to pry it open while his right hand held the smoldering branch at the ready. Magnus fought as best he could, but as hopelessness took him, his movements were weak and he lacked the ability to even keep his teeth together. Odahviing was not coming. Agryctor eventually succeeded in wrenching open his mouth and plunged the branch downward.

The screech of a dragon rent the air, the power of it shaking the ground once more. Agryctor dropped the branch, and Magnus jerked his head backward to avoid being burned.

A large shadow moved across the island just before a wave of frost hit the fire in a burst of steam. Magnus closed his eyes and kept his head down, relief flooding through him.

  
Odahviing wheeled around and swooped, extending a claw to snatch up Agryctor, who screamed as he was suddenly airborne. A moment later, the dragon dropped the vampire into the sea, in two pieces.

Mogrul cast about for a weapon and found only the burning branch, which was a pitiful defense against a dragon. “What have you done?” he shouted at Magnus. “What have you—no!” He waved the branch in front of him as Odahviing landed, the dragon’s hind legs on the far edge of the island, the rock barely long enough to for him to stand on. He was unconcerned about the twig with the bit of spark at the end of it, and simply snapped his jaws over the Orc and reared back, stretching his neck up and swallowing.

“What has happened here, _fahdon?_ ” the dragon asked in his rumbling tones that sounded like the boiling depths of Red Mountain itself. He lowered his head to inspect the Nord.

Magnus’s body shook with relief and gratitude, though he had no voice with which to say anything. Odahviing didn’t seem to mind. With utmost care, he leaned his giant head forward and snapped the mage’s bonds with an incisor. Magnus fell forward, and it was several minutes before he had the will to attempt to get himself onto the dragon’s back. He stepped gingerly, the burns and blisters on his feet threatening to burst. Odahviing assisted him as best he could with his wing.

“Have they left you no cloak? The _bod_ —the flight will be a cold one without it,” the dragon said, craning his neck around to look at Magnus. Magnus scanned the ground, and his eyes fell on the boat that Mogrul and Agryctor must have used to bring him here. There was a bundle on one of the seats. Magnus pointed, his arm trembling, and Odahviing used his wing again to maneuver the bundle up to the mage. Magnus’s enchanted rings and amulet were folded up into his tunic and cloak; he slipped them on and managed to get his arms into the sleeves of the cloak. He spread the tunic along the dragon’s neck and laid on top of it to hold it there.

“Alright,” he whispered.

“I will return you to the _wuth gein_ —the Greybeards,” Odahviing said as he tensed in preparation for flight. “Let them work their arts over you and rebuild your strength.”

He gave an unsettling lurch into the air and took to the sky, as Magnus closed his eyes and finally let the blessed darkness of sleep overtake him.


End file.
